The first in a multi-part series by Lance Marwood

Warning: graphic content.

"The way to a man's heart is through his chest."

I don't remember where I first heard it. If I had to guess, I'd say just one of those pearls that lands up in your feed.

No idea when I first used it either, though I'm confident it wasn't before I was a torturer.

Regardless of where or when, I always find myself coming back to it, over and over again.

I have this vague memory that maybe it was some kind of a joke, maybe. An old one. Like, Pre-Dynasty old. If it is, I gotta admit, I don't get it.

But to me, it just fits. Like a glass slipper or a man's skin.

I like how simple it is. You can debate and holler and scream all you like. You can cry and shriek and weep and plead all you like. None of that changes a damn thing.

It's just how it is. The way to a man's heart is through his chest.

Just the same way, people end up in the halls because they deserve to be there. Because they chose this.

We all make choices. We need to live with those choices.

They're there because they chose this; I'm there because I chose this.

The way to a man's heart is through his chest.

It's odd. I feel like it's always been with me. Like some koan that was carved on the inside of my skull. Even though I know there's no way I could have had it before I became a torturer.

It's funny, I don't think of my time before that often. I don't need to. I'm here now. The moment I set foot in the corridors, I knew I'd come home.

People have no idea we exist, but there's a small population out there, always toying with the danger, always flying a little too close to the truth. And while they suspect we exist, they have no idea the prowess we possess.

And it is prowess, make no mistake. It's technical expertise, psychological acumen, and extraordinary perception.

There's something people don't realize we're looking for. It's not the intel, or the juice. It's not even our own grip on the wheel, leather on leather, white knuckling all the way through the screams, ecstatic as it may be.

It's the fear you see in their eyes when they lose hope.

It's the moment when everything melts away. It's the walls that come down, the naked vulnerability that catches up to them, the sudden airliner toilet flush of their bowels in fear as they realize they aren't going to make it.

For us, this is the moment we fight for. Everything we do, no matter the discipline, whether you're one of those arrogant social death types or even some mouth-breathing peeler, we're all fighting for that moment.

It doesn't come right away. It's not the immediate terror some of them get, all hysterical and bug-eyed. It's not the loud-mouthed begging or the yellers with piss running down their legs. All of that's a salve, if you know anything about the business. It's all just window dressing, and anyone worth their salt knows you ride that shit out until they're done with the posturing.

Let's say I put the boot to your ass in the middle of the sticks. It's night time in the winter, about two feet of snow everywhere. Wanna know how to stay alive when you're out in the cold? Jumping jacks. And you don't stop doing them until the sun rises.

It's the same with these screeching howler monkeys some of us get. I remember this one guy, I'll never forget the carrying on he did. I'm a sandman, mind, so it's not like anything I've got is going to resemble a peeler's kit. But still, you wouldn't believe the shrieking he did the second he came to. Course, that's just as likely to be from the cold dunk, but that's besides the point.

Point is, you can't trust these jackals any more than you can trust the shit they spew when they first come to in the room.

That's why you need to wait.

So much of this job is waiting. You have to let the panic and fear hit them in waves, which means you need to let the subject get back to themselves. You can't erase hope without them feeling hope. First thing they teach you before they let you have a shot at the halls.

I've always taken that lesson to heart. It's what drove me to become a sandman: patience.

That's the difference between me and the rest of these goons. They're so hellbent on getting the bag, punching their ticket so they can move on to the next one. It's just sloppy. And greedy. Makes you impatient. So they try to squeeze too quick, and they lose the subject.

Now, sometimes the squeeze is to exterminatus. That means til they're flatlined and fully kaput and utterly unuseable. I don't know how many of our jobs are like that, all I know is that I've never personally seen one so, take that for what it's worth.

Instead, the majority of jobs are going to be split one or two ways. The first is the easy one.

The other one is the real spicy one: the subject is to be returned to society, so that comes with a no touch clause. It means there can be no evidence that they were ever in any of our rooms. Those ones are tough.

That's a big no-no. Fuck up like that can cost you everything. I've even heard rumours that some torturers who mess up like that found themselves in those rooms.

And honestly? Good. They deserve it. Because at the end of the day, we serve at the pleasure of the Dynasties. If you focus on the bag, you deserve the blade. Or fist.

Or in my case, the tank.

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